Thank you, Wayne LaPierre, America’s unsung civil rights leader

The most influential civil rights leader of the past half-century stepped down from his post on Friday, and few Americans noticed. Those who did were largely far-left establishment media types doing a victory lap over the resignation of Wayne LaPierre, longtime National Rifle Association executive vice president. The real reason the professional left is celebrating is because Wayne consistently kicked their butts in Congress, state legislatures and at polling places across the nation. And America’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is more robust than ever as a result.

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By Rick Manning

The most influential civil rights leader of the past half-century stepped down from his post on Friday, and few Americans noticed. Those who did were largely far-left establishment media types doing a victory lap over the resignation of Wayne LaPierre, longtime National Rifle Association executive vice president.

The real reason the professional left is celebrating is because Wayne consistently kicked their butts in Congress, state legislatures and at polling places across the nation. And America’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is more robust than ever as a result.

I worked as a state lobbyist at the National Rifle Association when Wayne was the director of federal affairs, executive director of the Institute for Legislative Action and at the beginning of his tenure as NRA executive vice president.

He was the opposite of the stereotype of an NRA leader — a soft-spoken, contemplative strategist. Wayne was anything but the bellicose leader that many on the left hoped to face in their assault on the Second Amendment. Instead, he recruited and encouraged others like Charlton Heston to use his booming voice in the fight while he did the hard work of building the formidable grassroots army and political networks to not only defeat the enemies of the civil rights of law-abiding citizens but, over time, win the realization of what the individual right to keep and bear arms actually means.

During his leadership of the National Rifle Association, other rights like the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, the Fifth Amendment private property protections against government confiscation, and the once sacrosanct First Amendment have come under assault and have seen their free exercise undermined and curtailed dramatically.

But not the Second Amendment of the Constitution, because none of those other freedoms was protected by a National Rifle Association. Despite the efforts of the mass media empires, foreign governments and the brie-eating, Champagne-drinking chattering class, the individual gun rights of Americans in those same years have prospered.

And it has been Wayne LaPierre’s steady leadership and vision that made this success possible.

On a personal level, I observed Wayne in the workplace for nine years. I was a soldier in the state lobbying division, while Wayne’s focus was federal operations. In those years, Wayne spent zero time worrying about clothes, haircuts or other personal things that help brand you as a player in D.C. lobbying circles. In fact, some of us young gun lobbyists used to joke among ourselves that Wayne owned only one blue pinstriped suit that he never changed for nine years.

As he became executive vice president and his profile was raised, those he employed to help burnish the image of the NRA undoubtedly urged him to up his suit game. Those same consultants sat me down in an intervention prior to a media tour and explained that I needed to get rid of my parted-down-the-middle hairstyle, which served me through college, in exchange for a more professional, adult look. And I did.

If Wayne LaPierre hadn’t been the most effective civil rights leader and, in fact, the most effective leader on the right over the past 50 years, The New York Times would not be cheering his resignation. It is plainly true that the legal assault the NRA and Wayne has faced from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is politically prosecuting former President Donald Trump, would have never occurred.

While some may be dancing around excited by the announcement of Wayne’s resignation, I hope that every person reading this, every person who is able to buy a firearm in this country, and every person who is now able to carry one, whether by license or under state constitutional carry laws, understands that if not for Wayne LaPierre, none of that may still exist.

Gun rights have been under constant attack from the late 1980s on, and it was the National Rifle Association that stood in the gap, suffering personal vilification on every law-abiding citizen’s behalf. And it was Wayne who publicly took those slings and arrows at great personal cost.

Replacing Wayne will not be easy.

The National Rifle Association has had only four leaders since the organization’s fateful Cincinnati convention in 1976, out of which its political arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, was forged — Harlon Carter, Ray Arnett, Warren Cassidy and Wayne LaPierre. It is my prayer that the gun rights leaders of the next 50 years have half the success in protecting and expanding gun rights as those four enjoyed. 

Choosing a new leader will be hard, but in the meantime, Americans who stand for liberty should say a prayer for and send a note of thanks to Wayne LaPierre for his lifetime of service to keep America free.

Rick Manning was a state liaison and manager of the grassroots division at the National Rifle Association and currently serves as president of Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jan/8/thank-you-wayne-lapierre-americas-unsung-civil-rig/

 

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